Live Long, but Not Right Now
by PlanetOfTheWeepingWillow
Summary: It's time to leave Earth, and Alfred's set up a space program to get out. It's still in the works. What he can't understand is why everyone is so worried. Maybe he's just too young to get it. One-Shot.


"Do you think we'll change?"

"Well, maybe not all that much."

The two looked at each other, glancing, briefly, eyes meeting, before fluttering away. Alfred sipped on the beer which chilled his hands even through the thick leather gloves. He watched Francis shift uncomfortable. The air had turned stagnant, even more so than was usual for the mustiness of the city air. Motorcycles buzzed passed, creating ripples in the puddles, reflection dim orange lights and the limitlessness of the nighttime.

"But this trip, it's expensive as hell." Francis said, trying to shift the topic, but not all that much.

"It's worth it. I think so. We get to see new life. Get to be out of this shitty pile of garbage we call a planet."

"It's still our planet, it's still our home."

"We can find new homes. You don't live in a wrecked apartment when it gets torn down, do you? I mean, sure you feel all sentimental about it, but it doesn't mean you have to stay there forever. Even if you were born there."

"That's an apartment! A thing of cement and brick and probably a lot of asbestos if it got torn down. It's incomparable. It's not a planet, for God's sake. Why are you so heartless about this matter?"

"I'm not heartless, you're too heartfelt." Alfred shrugged.

He set his beer down and picked up some fries that were steadily going soggy. He chewed on them, scrutinising Francis under his glare. What was so wrong, anyway? What was so wrong about sending a few people off the dying planet? Francis seemed genuinely disturbed. And it irritated Alfred. How could a man who claimed to be Westernised and ever moving forwards buckle down so hard? Sure, Alfred was all about innovation and movement and big bustling scientific discoveries, but he wasn't that much more advanced than the rest of them. Even Arthur and Feliciano seemed discontented with Alfred's new space cruiser.

They had come over for a look at it, in the large sealed factory. Only half of it was started, the inner shell like a fossilised skeleton, with complicated plumbing, electricity, and recycling processes looping around like blatant intestines. The other half was all blueprint and debate. The head of the ship, the control board, was still only a hulk of a computer with programmers frothing at the mouth over it.

And yet, even in its disarray, Feli and Arthur winced visibly. It wasn't even done yet, what was there to be scared of?

"When will it be done?" Francis asked, trying to break the silence.

"They say in a couple decades, but they seem to be moving fast. Dr. Khurmi said that everyone is very eager. And seeing the pollution levels in his city alone, he says he has every right to be. Not just that, but how much longer would they have to collect disposable food sources without starving the rest of the country? So, to answer your question, maybe in three decades maximum."

"That's so soon."

"To you and I, yeah. Not to everyone else."

"Is that enough time?"

"Enough time for what?"

Francis turned away. And when he didn't answer, Alfred felt himself grow even more flustered, and burst out despite himself "Enough time to totally damage the planet? Enough time that we wear it out so that the atmosphere rips like toilet paper? Enough time to shit over the entire planet?"

"Stop yelling, child."

"I am not yelling I'm just frustrated by you people. Why the hell are all of you so weird? Why don't you, oh I don't know, get out of whatever mental hole you're in?"

"Alfred, stop." This time Francis' demeanour changed entirely. He went from quiet brooding to facing Alfred face-on, and reaching out for his hand. Alfred looked at the greasy fingers of his gloves, matched with the delicate silk Francis had worn. It felt out of place. He felt thousands of years in the future. Francis sighed, gently, like explaining to a child. "Alfred, you are so young."

"Is that a bad thing? Don't start the millennial debate here."

A motorcycle rumbled past, ruffling Francis' hair. He stared into Alfred's eyes, seeing a mirror of his own, a speck of his own blood, a speck of his own identity, his passions, many of which long gone or hidden somewhere inside of him. He had gone weary. His country had gone weary. He felt that Alfred was ahead, too, and he knew it to be true.

"I'm not starting a debate."

"Then? Get to the goddamn point."

"Alfred, think. I know what you're doing is good for mankind. It is good for exploration, to an extent. And even though I think humans are parasites, I can't doubt their will to live is stronger than any distant morality…"

Alfred cut him off, feeling he had come to a conclusion. "You think we shouldn't invade the stars?"

"No, I don't and I do."

"Great answer."

Alfred pulled his hands away. He had heard that debate. Maybe that was why he had gone so feisty. Maybe that was why he sought out Francis to get a beer in the city and talk things over. Even though he wanted to strangle him most days, he usually kind of liked him and liked his serene patience and fluffed up arrogance. Now he was just annoyed. His other top scientist, Dr. Melinda O'Neil, had made the same argument. Maybe we're meant to die off, she had suggested. Maybe people are just exterminating themselves, and the next step in evolution. Plants can come back, don't you think? Bacteria will thrive. We can't. Maybe we're not meant to.

The idea had scared Alfred so much he nearly fired her on the spot. But she was the top biologist and, anyway, she wouldn't be colonising the new world. She'd be too old then, she said so herself. She'd live on in voice recordings.

And in the words she spoke to him, in his memory. She had no idea he'd live forever to retain her face, her youth, her arguments. None of the doctors did. They thought he was a youthful CEO. Which meant he didn't usually get treated with the highest regard, unfortunately. Damn his naturally good youthful looks.

"Alfred?"

Alfred snapped back to Francis, feeling hazy from all his thoughts.

"Are you listening?"

"No."

"Then listen right now."

"I am."

"Remember Rome?"

"From all the stories? Yeah, sure."

"Have you seen him around."

"He's been dead for years."

"And he's one of us."

"His empire fell."

"But he died."

"So?"

"You're really dense, you know that?"

Alfred pinched his face at him. Rome was dead. He was an empire too. Rome didn't like using a "human" name, he was beyond that. He was too powerful. Alfred had a distant memory of Feliciano getting drunk and rolling in a barn and crying. It was forever ago. It was in the forties. Alfred had seen him, sobbing, face puffed like a tomato.

"Grandfather… I didn't think you could die. You said you'd protect me…" He had moaned. Alfred passed it off for another of Feliciano's musings and had gone on, back to business, back over the fields of grain.

Didn't think he could die.

Alfred couldn't die, he knew that. He was strong. So long as his people lived, so would he. Right?

It settled in, then.

He stared, somewhat wide-eyed, at Francis.

"Wait are you saying this could kill me?"

"Maybe not you, but it could kill us."

"Why you?"

"Because you are the voyager. The people who come will come with you, and the ship is American, and the journey is American, all of them will identify as an American, at least for a short while. We can work on ships too, but we're too steeped in our own mess and our own war. We don't have the time, the money, the resources. All who would be capable rushed to your aide. They did it for an earthly good not national pride. It's a silly thing anyway. The death of national pride shouldn't matter much, after all, they're all human.

"But what are we? We aren't human, Alfred. We aren't immortal either."

"So, it doesn't matter." Alfred said faster than he could think. He stood up, collected his jacket. He realised, in that moment, as the rain had begun to splatter down again, that it really didn't matter. "It doesn't matter, I don't think."

"What doesn't?"

"Us. We don't matter. We're figments, we're figures, idols, icons, we don't matter in the end. It's mankind that matters. I think it does."

"That… That's very unselfish of you. Makes me realise how different you are." Francis smiled up at him. His face looked older in the dim light.

"Maybe it is selfish of me, because I want my legacy to live on more than I want myself to live on."

"Maybe."

Alfred looked more closely at Francis, seeing that the lines of worry on his face weren't those of brooding, weren't those of fear. Francis wasn't afraid. Neither were Arthur or Feliciano. When they had looked at Alfred they had given a strained smile.

"Good job," Arthur had said, his voice neither sarcastic nor proud. It wasn't something Alfred recognised from him. It threw him from a loop. Feliciano didn't have his usual floaty atmosphere either, he didn't flirt with the scientists nor did he try and prod everything. He had stood stock still, trembling slightly and turning his face away. "Yes, good job, Mr Alfred."

They weren't scared, not like Alfred had thought in his arrogance.

"So, you and Arthur and Feli and Ludwig and, all of you, you guys aren't scared?"

"What is there to be scared of? You cannot fear the inevitable, fear comes from the unknown. I think so, at least."

No, they were sad.

After all these years and all these wars, it was the event that broke their hearts.

Even Alfred felt he was beginning to fade, just a little. Soon he'd be a memory, too. He thought that he should get started on some voice recordings.


End file.
